A few of his favorite things...

P specifically asked for the following to be photographed. He deemed each thing "special" on his trip :)

Rocks and Fossils, oh my!

P's big fascination of late is rocks and fossils. We visited the American Museum of Natural History right before we left home and the little man eschewed the gift shop toys for fossils. So it was only natural that we would schedule a stop at the Red Rose Rock Shop while we were out west. P was overwhelmed with happiness, and options. He very carefully stuck to his budget... and planned ahead for his next visit :)

Returning to our cabin, we had to open his geode. The fabulous Uncle Seth and amazing Aunt Alicia had surprised him just a few days before with some special rocks - and he'd had such a great time chipping at their geode that he was super psyched to do it again. This one, however, was crazy solid. P hammered away at the thing. Uncle Blaine gave it a whirl. Uncle Seth tried his hand. They tossed it on the concrete sidewalk. (It was a small geode, by the way :) They heaved a huge rock at it, but to no avail. Finally, Uncle Seth slammed a boulder down onto the miniscule geode and it popped open. It was great fun :)

P also scored the following fabulousness: A trilobite fossil (his favorite), a cephalopod fossil, a squid fossil (also his favorite), and a smattering of small crystals. Since our return to Kansas, the kid has been fossil hunting on grams' limestone rock wall a number of times, scouting out quite a few fossils and a frog skeleton. And from all of this has evolved a dream for the future, when pressed for such things: a rock and crystal shop. To be run by P and his Mama and Papa. We'd scour the world for rocks and fossils, keep most of them and sell a few. He's happy to finally have an answer to the "what will you do when you grow up" question that has always irked him, as his answer of "just be Phoenix" usually garners chuckles. A seemingly strange response, according to the little man ;)

Party Central

Despite the fact that we've been back from Colorado for, um... two weeks? I'm still blogging about our trip! I'm a bit behind, as the little man has become a late night reveler this month....

Going to bed started becoming a real issue last month. Before that, we'd have the occasional blip, but generally we'd just head to bed when P was tired (he's a naturally rhythmic kid, so it was a predictable time) and read, cuddle, sleep. He's never welcomed sleep, but the nursing that eventually evolved to just cuddling always sealed the deal. (This, of course, is a mute point when family or company is around. Then he's never tired :)

But no more! He would become agitated when the light went off. Or he'd be angry about brushing his teeth. About a book being over. I couldn't figure it out. It wasn't just because he was over-tired. He was procrastinating. Big time. Not arguing about going to bed, but doing all he could to do things on his time line. It finally dawned on me that he wasn't in the driver's seat, we were still doing his toddler routine, (it had worked well for a few years!) and he just wasn't a toddler anymore. He was ready to decide himself when he'd crawl into bed, but I don't think he realized that was even an option :) Another parenting head smack for me....

So we've tried a new routine since Colorado. I tell him when I'm tired and help him get ready for bed. Then I go to bed (and read) and he plays in the bedroom for as long as he likes. He loves it. There are no more issues about getting ready for bed (other than he'd rather the whole house stay up later and occasionally tries to keep Grams up with a story or a quick question :) But after a few reminders that the adults are exhausted, he happily brushes his teeth and cleans up for bed. He's also playing independently, every night. Something I hadn't been able to finagle for four years. He really understands that I'm tired so he doesn't begrudge my non-participation, unlike any other time of day. And he's just so tickled that he's in charge of his whole day now, that he's happily playing in the corner by himself. Sure, sure, there's typically a question or comment directed towards me every couple of minutes, but there are also periods where he's completely involved in his own little world, chattering to himself. And happily! And he spends a good deal of time every night pouring over books, sitting on the carpet, muttering as he slowly turns pages. I think he gets more reading done than I do, since I so enjoy watching him play :)

He plays for a bit, comes up to cuddle and read, goes to play for a bit, back for a cuddle, goes to play, comes back for one final cuddle and then, purposefully flops around and goes to sleep. I love that he's listening to his body, figuring out when he no longer feels comfortable vertical. I don't know what exhaustion feels like for him, I can't honestly tell him when his head is fuzzy, nows the time to sleep. He has to figure out his body's cues and learn to trust them. So we're trying to give him that safe space. And he's starting to sleep in and make up for his missed hours now that his nocturnal activities keep the light shining bright until 11 or so every night... But it sure is fun having that light on when he goest to sleep these days - I've so missed seeing his sweet eyes grow heavy and finally, relax (since he needed it to be Dark to go to sleep for a while there.) Oh yeah, its a party here!

Still Stormy

Thought the little man was less than chipper the following day, we had a longtime friend meeting us for hiking and therefore headed out once again. Linking last year's trip, I noticed I admitted to a higher level of frustration by Friday. That trend held true this trip too, with the food allergy issue not helping :) The above pic pretty much nails P's mindset for Friday...

Fortunately, our dear friend is amazing and understanding. And she had a great recommendation for a new hike that's beauty defeated our tightened smiles. If only I remembered the trail name...

At any rate, there were waterfalls and rocks and rain. A subtle, softer storm than the day before, both above and below :)

Food Allergies and the Fern Lake Trail

P, storm brewing:



Grandpapa is super strong:


P and I play billy goats:


Uncle Ian really pays billy goat:


Poor little P was born with food allergies. Why? I dunno. Some have suggested it was my fault (nice :) Some say luck of the draw. Some say its inherited (E does have a number of food allergies). Some say its environmental toxins overloading our wee ones.... Some say its bullshit :) I'll never know. But I do know that some foods really mess with my kid.

The super slow process of figuring out exactly what messes with P is a bone of contention between me and myself. Had I only known when he was first born, oh how much lovelier his introduction to this world would have been! The "colic!" But everything for a reason and all that jazz ;) Fortunately, he's not anaphylactic or anything, we're actually really lucky. And his list has slowly shrunk in size. The bottom line is that nuts (yup, all of them - but not seeds!), food coloring and most artificial flavors/preservatives/nasty chemical cocktails added to packaged foods are out for us. He seems over his dairy, egg, chocolate (in moderate amounts) and soy (well, he can have edamame and tofu in small quantities, but soy derivatives still mess with him) sensitivities.

How do we know what he's allergic to? We've had ample opportunity to observe the trends, since we are unschooling food and the little man generally chooses what he puts in his body. This means he's bucked our advice numerous times and eaten his allergens over and over again. And his sweet little form has a brilliant stop sign - a bright red tush. This, combined with eczema after forbidden fruits, always lets us know his body isn't happy. Were these the only issues though, it would be a lot easier to lean towards a popular approach to food sensitivities: benadryl and skin creams :) But P's emotional roller coaster after he's eaten something his body dislikes can't be as easily soothed by a chamomile bath. He obsesses, rages, hits and is just a general mess to be around :)

So we keep our kitchen free of any allergens (no high fructose corn syrup, no nuts, no crazy preservatives, fortunately the co-op has affordable organic!) and know restaurants that work for us. But every once in a while, the kid sees something he wants to try. Now that he's older, when we mention said food has an allergen, he typically happily skips off looking for a replacement. But sometimes (generally when he's in a group and excited to participate - ahhh peer pressure!) he just wants to try it...

Barring the times we are staying in another's space (umm, his mood swings and other's breakables don't go well together) his food choices are just that: his. And so we watch him be uncomfortable in his skin and try to support him while he rages about crazy things for three days. And then we mention that maybe his body doesn't like that food so much. And in the last few months, he's realized this. Really realized it.

So I've seen him turn down offers of nuts (which he loves the taste of). And candy (which he loves the idea of:). All of his own doing, without a glance towards me or a second thought. He really doesn't like feeling gross. And he's finally getting old enough to connect the two dots all on his own.

But many of his sensitivities are big long words hidden at the end of an ingredient list he cannot yet read. And as he enjoyed his independence in Colorado, sliding from one cabin to another, teasing one family member after another to achieve full tickle status, he munched on something somewhere that didn't agree with him. His eczema was worse than I'd seen in many months. His tush was so red he winced. And his insides, apparently, felt about the same....

Which is a really long introduction to our next, and loveliest, hike. His inner storm was brewing from the get-go, but despite the personal stop sign down yonder, he seemed to be keeping himself in decent check. And he wanted to hike. So off we went with his Grandparents, Uncle Ian and Aunt Alicia.

The trail is beautiful, if not mosquito laden, wandering initially along the river through boulder fields. P was in heaven with all of the climbing and rock collecting. At one point, a little cave opened up into a wall seemingly built for bouldering. And so that's exactly what we watched the great Uncle Ian do:



P, captivated by Ian's ascent:



Around the corner, grew up a wall of great boulders that had provided us with an afternoon of fun last year. Our previous foray up this slope had us lamenting Uncle Ian's absence, so we embraced our chance to play with him this time:



He was a huge help as the little man catapulted from one rock to another, his steady arms always ready to catch a falling child. The view was gorgeous and the rocks just difficult enough to manage that the little man felt like a True Explorer. As clouds moved in, E reached us on the walkie talkie to remind us of the slickness of rain kissed rock, so we sighed and started back down. P didn't want to go, but was eventually willing. Then he was just too tired, too hungry, to move. It was like his inner environment was mimicking the sky overhead...

We eventually reached the trail and refueled, ready to move onward. The sky cleared and the little man's spirits were buoyed by sustenance. He merrily marched atop Ian's strong back, singing stinky songs about Aunt and Uncle, quite pleased with himself. We stopped at the stream to gather a few rocks and take in the view, and the little man's clouds passed over once more....



Ian sweetly fished fave rocks out of the freezing water, the heaviest of which we cleverly stashed behind a tree to retrieve on the return hike. P wasn't exactly thrilled by this approach, but he's familiar with it. (We often hide rocks or sticks in bushes while out in the park, planning to grab the prize on our return home, since the little man typically brings a bag of toys, another bag of snacks and a scooter on our city adventures, thereby filling my octopus arm quotient while out playing :)

On we hiked, P's obsession with rocks growing exponentially. Still he gathered. His pockets were full. Our bag was full. Ian's pockets were loaded. And yet he dug in the dirt, adding rocks till his waistband hit his knees :



When I could see he'd gone over the edge, there was no return from his present cloud cover to clear skies, I suggested a return to the car. Nope, no doing. (Which was fine, it was a lovely hike and one we hoped to see more of this year than last.) So I suggested a moratorium on rock picking, or to at least do trades for those unusually special rocks that couldn't be left behind. He resolutely stuck rocks in his pants, his ears hearing nothing but inner thunder. Then he tried to con his Aunt into carrying more of his beloveds. Ever the love, she found this, something that was straining my every last nerve of patience, preciously hilarious. I silently blessed her then, for putting it back into perspective for me:



So, we attempted to load up on more rocks, sweet Alicia now weighed down too :) I tossed the little man into the mei tai to avoid further confrontation and on we hiked. Alicia and P's grandparents headed back to the cabin (wise, wise choice ;) and Uncle Ian, E and I pressed on...

Quite honestly, the hike only got prettier from there, visually. After a waterfall, a nice local pointed us towards the best route when schlepping a child and it was unbelievably beautiful. Much more verdant than most of the hikes:



She also informed us that by following this trail, we wouldn't have to backtrack our steps; it would dump us right into the distant parking area where we had left our car. A new hike and no extra hike to the car? Perfect!

So the little man chilled for a while, centering himself a bit in the mei tai. Then he popped out for some more rock clambering fun:



And then he was done. Ready to go to the car. When I informed him we were heading to the car, the realization that his precious rock would stay hidden behind that tree hit him and it was Not Pretty. D'oh.

He demanded we turn around and go back the way we came. To emphasize his point, he stomped off in the backtrack direction, arms pumping, jaw jutting, breath humphing. The sky, echoing his insides, was brewing something heavy duty and the car was definitively not parked in his preferred direction. Meanwhile, E and Ian looked on, ready to move on. But the little man could not let it go. He spat, hit, screamed and then melted. Then he repeated it all. Thanks to Alicia's laughter, I'd found my center again and was able to accept his upset for what it was for him, rather than the silliness it was to me. And not only did he miss his rock, the one he claimed no other could ever replace, he felt betrayed. We'd promised to grab his rock on the way down. Now we weren't. The kid had a fair point. We promised to re-hike the following day, but he was storming so loudly that options wouldn't be heard. His wee body wasn't under his control and it broke my heart to see him so outside of himself and hurting.

It was ugly. And long. And gawd bless Ian for chilling at the top of the mountain for the entire melt-down. When the little man was finally spent, he most reluctantly climbed into the mei tai to moan out a few more sobs as we descended. Then, as we passed a lily laden lake and rounded a few seep sodden bends, the sky finally relaxed too and dropped everything it had onto us. Hail and then a pounding rain. Armed with ponchos it was actually a lovely adventure, as the trails turned to tiny rivers and the mosquitos finally departed. Steam rose off of the mountains as we jumped from rock to rock. The little man, awakened from his short nap by the storm, was quietly chillin' in the mei tai, his vision obscured by the giant orange poncho tapping beneath the raindrops. I tried to imagine what the experience was like for him right then, safely wrapped up, wee legs dangling in the cold and wet, warm body rising and falling unpredictably due to his carrier's constant jumps, everything just orange lights and shadows. (Heart enervated by what he saw as our first departure from our word....)



Though E struggled to not pick P up and carry him down the mountain against his will when we were awaiting the end of his wailings (we're attempting to avoid all implications of the "might makes right" rule), he didn't hesitate to make sure we stayed good to our word. And so the Super Papa re-hiked the Fern Lake Trail two days later and fetched P his prized rock. Faith restored. Food allergy lesson revisited.

Interestingly enough, the little man has been Very Cautious about asking me to read labels ever since this incident. And that's what I love about unscooling/life learning. He's wanting to be careful about what he eats so that he feels good. Not because his mama told him so :) (Note: This success has not yet yielded enlightenment in my brain. I still have to repeat my mantra daily: we do not want subservient and compliant. we do not want subservient and complaint... Why doesn't he just listen to me?!?! Wait, I meant, we do not want subservient or compliant....)

Summer

This sloppy shot just seemed like summer to me :) Barefoot, messy, 'nary a care in the world, climbin'. The child, even when off the mountain, away from the big boulders, was still climbing :)

ATV

Last year, P was too little to go on the family adventure (white water rafting) but he met the size requirements for four wheeling this year! So we drove further into the mountains to meet our dozen or so all terrain vehicles on which we could hurl ourselves down peak side passes :)

P and Uncle Ian watching everyone gear up:



The only glitch in the little man's seamless plan was the hulking helmet. Not a fan of dress-up or looking "not Phoenix-ish" (his phrase!) he had No Interest in donning the sizable safety gear. Fortunately for him, there was no state helmet law, merely an eyeware law. Familiar with four wheelers and knowing I'd be going crazy slow with a four year old perched between my thighs, we decided we were comfortable with his preference, so away we went!

P and I prepped for our ride:



E and P enjoying a midmorning snack (E radioing his fam so they wouldn't think they'd lost us!):



Everyone zipped around having a ball while P and I piddled about at the back of the line. It was really lovely, perfect weather, gorgeously blue skies (we see nothing of that sort in New York and I found it visually shocking on a daily basis). The trails were very rocky in some areas and without any helmets I wasn't willing to take many chances, so we fell behind the speedster Uncles quickly. Eventually the little man, hoping to catch up, agreed to try his headware, hoping beyond hope that no one would notice or say anything (he even snuck it on while E "wasn't looking!") Unfortunately, his wee stature combined with the enormous jolts proved too big of a challenge for his ill fitting helmet. It bounced down over his eyes, flipped up over his chin, basically proving ineffective and uncomfortable :)

P, trying on his helmet, briefly :)



So he took it back off, we slowed back down and all was well again. Then, after about two and a half hours, he was done. It was literally like a light switch. One minute he was saying it was so fun and two minutes later he shouted out, "Ok! This isn't fun anymore! I'm doooooone! Let's loose this puppy and walk down the mountain." Fair enough - he was way too short to stand up and avoid any of the huge bumps, and his hands had itty-bitty blisters from holding so tightly onto straps and belts so as not to fly off of the bouncing, bumping machine...

Down we headed, to read Abel's Island in the car. P's summation of the adventure: "It was fun, and then it wasn't. I liked it, except for the bumps."

Hikin'

Our next hike took us into Rocky Mountain National Park on a trail we enjoyed last year, but off road style :)

The hike was lovely following the trail too, though the little man complained a bit about our law abiding ways. He travelled on various Uncle's shoulders when the path didn't hold his interest as much as all of these strong men.







The snow, last year's big hit in July, only received a brief romp at four and a Half. Rocks were the mainstay this trip. Whether it was jumping around on large ones, or collecting favorites from a boulder field, the little man was passionate about pebbles.



At the trail's end, while Uncle Jace explored his way to a distant waterfall, the fam lazed about a large rock. After a brief snack and sit, P was on the move again. So he cajoled Uncle Blaine into scaling a boulder field with him :) Seeing no end in site to this expedition, I went up to assist. It was steeper than I had figured - the little man is a pretty solid climber! We chipped away at crystal and gathered more rocks, overlooking a beautiful lake and under a very bright sun.



The end of the trail, a quiet spot by the veritable quarry :



Upon his return from the wilderness, sweet Jace presented P with a souvenir mountain top flower and rock :) Aren't these guys the greatest?



On the trek down, P found a small waterfall and became ensconced in a private narrative. He huddled over a rock littered with blast holes and strategically stuck pine cones in said holes, quietly chattering to himself the whole time. The area operated under the same theory as Dumbo: too loud (due here to water noise rather than train rattles) to hear one another. This freed the little man to fly away in his head, a rare treat for all of us :)

P, perched over his holes to heaven:


He played here for a Long time, our patience a concession to his flexibility and forbearance in following the herd, not his most favorite activity :)

Driving home, the little man once again made good use of his esteemed binoculars (O! The ever thoughtful Uncle Ian!) lovingly watching his mountains fade away as he relaxed his tired body....

The little man all grown up...

Above, P, at one and a half


P just said to me:
"I used to play with those all the time when I was a kid."

:)

And just a few weeks ago he stopped on the street and said to me:

"Mama, I really feel like a grown up already. I think I might be. There are small sized grown ups you know."

And then I see him squeal in delight when he puts a cicada shell on his Grams' leg and think, yah, almost kid :)

And then, as we sat in bed tonight, he tells me how he felt today when circumstances found him with his father, grandfather and Uncle on an adventure, sans Mama:

"I wasn't very happy Mama. I was very happy for you, in my heart, that you could do what you needed to do. But I was also sad, for me, that we weren't together. And I was angry, and sad, and let all of that out in tears. I had so many tears - they filled my body! And then I had a good adventure, but my heart was still sad since I wasn't with you."

Procrastinating sleep, he rambled quite a bit more on the subject, which was precious to hear. And, despite the tears that his Mama wasn't with him (not typically an adult response :) it all sounded very grown up to me, if I may say so myself.

Lily Lake: our first hike

Trying to acclimate from sea level, we chose a short but lovely hike for our first afternoon. P was prepared, packing Froggy, BB and Sock Monkey onto E's pack, and sporting his new walkie talkie on his pants :)



After climbing the first few bends and showing no qualms approaching any precipices



the little man announced it was time to lose the trail. He still remembers the glorious hike we took with Uncle Ian last year, leaving the trail behind for greener pastures and hidden lakes. So off we scurried, between big boulders and fallen trees. Conservation aside, it really is a lovely way to travel :) Rather than focusing on just putting one foot in front of another (not so interesting for P from about two on...) the little man could fantasize being lost, or stuck atop a high drop-off, or on the trail of a big bad bear... And after he worried himself into a funny fake frenzy with his bountiful brain inventions he created one last scenario: the lost family. He smiled in delight and copped a face, frozen with worry, what will we do, Mama??? How will we find Papa and Seth and and and??

So out came his walkie talkie. I Luuuuuuved watching him use his walkie talkie. This was second only to hearing his voice through the walkie talkie:) (Can you tell I like saying walkie talkie?) He sounded So Young! Here, he communes with Froggy:



And soon we caught up with his fabulous family. Alicia, perched on a high rock, created intrigue out of a hole, exactly to P's liking:



Then the little man danced over to join Seth and Alicia on a ledge, losing his new favorite pine cone amongst the rocks below (I'm not gonna rat you out, Seth:) And that's it in a nutshell. A lot of friends ask how we spend such extended periods with family. A week straight surrounded by inlaws??? A month living with my mother and father??? But actually, its really quite simple. They all Adore our child and act accordingly! So, as the little man bemoaned his prize lost, Uncle Seth defied death and squeezed down the chasm to retrieve a Pine Cone. And there wasn't an eye roll in sight. No breathy sighs of "spoiled" or head shakes denoting "demanding." (Same scenario tonight, as the child joyfully banged a spatula across the cabinets, the sound loudly bouncing about the kitchen. Ethan and I both informed him this might not be a choice popular with all, nor favorable to the cabinets. Neither of my parents missed a beat as they alerted us to the fact that it was a really neat noise :)

The overlook and the chasm below:)



After a picnic, the little man continued to hike, his own two legs carrying him most of the way down to the lake. But as the return trip turned to a dull, rockbounding free path, his legs noticed his weight and he turned to what would be the bread and butter of our return hikes: my back (which I secretly love since he so rarely cuddles!) Its a hard combo though, the four year old and the adults. He's happy to go nowhere, just dig in the dirt and collect rocks and pine cones, meanwhile, we're all trying to finish the trail, accomplish the journey. Trying to fit everyone's needs in at once, without either party, the Bigs or the Little, feeling forgotten, was my only stresspoint for the week. It did get me to thinking even more about plodding along on a designated path, continuing a momentum (ahhh, that Amy Mann song!), versus stopping to smell the flowers though.....

The Drive

So, say one wants to go from NYC to the mountains of Colorado. Take a plane, no? Ahhh, but the child said no. As in, "No thanks, mama, I want to drive again." And the madman husband agreed. So off we flew to Kansas to kiss the fam briefly before we slid across rolling plains of heat, punctuated frequently by shouts of "Corn on the cob plants! Corn on the cob plants!!!" (And by frequently, I mean Every field of corn between here and darkness :) Hey, he's a city kid, this new sort of monotony (trees!!!) is exciting ;))

One of the sites that did excite the family as a whole was the huge field of windmills. Their size is breathtaking, especially when compared to an old school spinner. P and I chuckled, thinking of our little friend Logan's love of all things rotating, imagining his big blues taking in these huge, revolving wonders...

When all was said and done, the drive out and back was enjoyable. The little man proved to have a long attention span for window gazing and book reading and fell in love with "Nim's Island." And, come to find out, children do innately ask "When will we be at Colorado/Gram's house?" every five minutes for ten hours straight without thinking this odd in the least. Ah, well, another natural life lesson in time....

Inspiration

I sooooo dig this poem. It inspires me when I get that taffy feeling, ya know, the one where stuff is pulling at you and you're just standing still, trying to decide which pull is (or should be) strongest? P's a shoo in (and he knows it) but I still hear that silent social nagging singing in my synapses: dishes, dirt, duties, (blog)...

Ya, lame attempt to make up for my missed minutes logging my child's every canoodle... But read the poem anyway, its totally true :)

"Song for a Fifth Child."

Mother, oh Mother,

come shake out your cloth,

empty the dustpan,

poison the moth,

hang out the washing

and butter the bread,

sew on a button and make up a bed.

Where is the mother whose house

is so shocking?

She's up in the nursery,

blissfully rocking.

Oh, I've grown shiftless as Little

Boy Blue (lullaby, rockaby, lullaby loo).

Dishes are waiting and bills are past due

(pat-a-cake, darling, and peek, peekaboo).

The shopping's not done

and there's nothing for stew

and out in the yard there's a hullabaloo

but I'm playing Kanga and this is my Roo.

Look! Aren't her eyes the most wonderful hue?

(lullaby, rockaby, lullaby loo).

The cleaning and scrubbing

will wait till tomorrow,

for children grow up,

as I've learned to my sorrow.

So quiet down, cobwebs.

Dust go to sleep.

I'm rocking my baby and babies don't keep'

~Ruth Hulburt Hamilton~

Concrete Cowboy

I have many, many posts in my head - but we're on vacation and thusly so is the blog :) First to Kansas and now to Colorado, the little man is venturing afar with family.... and loving it! More in a week!

Hate

I admit, I have hang-ups about this word. I rarely use it. It carries this heavy socio-political-historical context for me that I just can't shake. So I've stricken it from my language and the wee man had thusly followed suit... so far. Then about two weeks ago he assimilated, heard it, tried it, liked it. I do love that using this word provides him with a powerful exclamation point. I get that. And I realize he lacks the contextual bullshit that bogs me down when I hear "hate." To him, its just, well, an intense feeling of "no!" towards something.... But I'm still struggling to see the beauty in this new vocab word, to hear his truth when he says it rather than my fear.

Because its hard to see my little cherub turn into a kid. Simple foot stamped "no's," even screamed loudly, coming from a very short creature with big blue eyes and sweet little curls tend to make me smile. Even if the "no!" is directed towards me. Wee kids have the cute factor going for them. Evolutionary brilliance, really. But he's gotten taller. And louder. And stronger. And this strength is so important to him. He's also started having expectations. Often quite complex, far reaching, expectations. Which is, of course, the beginning of the end of ease, since matching the next minute to our imagination can only lead to frequent disappointments....

Which leads to anger. Which, apparently, leads to the word hate. I've been racking my brain, trying to remember if the emotions actually amped up at the same time "hate" came on the scene, or if they were already gloriously vivid and only lacking in specific verbal definition.... But I'm not sure. I only know I much preferred "I don't like that barking right now!!!!" to "I hate dogs!"

And I think that's it in a nutshell. The specificity of it seems to have gone sloppy. The pure violence of the word (he really spats it out!) seems to upstage the nuances of his anger. Bigotry and history aside, his "hate" explosions don't tell me enough to help him in any specific way. But they do tell me, in no uncertain terms, he's not happy :) Which is, I suppose, a very good thing. Especially since he seems to be entering a stage where he has a harder time admitting his emotions. Sometimes even signing instead of saying something when he's rather riled. Which is taking some catching up on my part, since I so prefer knowing exactly what he's thinking...

Right up until yesterday, that is ;) When his newfound word erupted at me :( After consuming an entire package of Tootsie Rolls in 24 hours he was in full on funky form. I know a lot of artificial stuff effects his little body, but we haven't tried something like this in a while so.... Well, now we know. A good friend even noticed the difference today, saying P seemed drunk or high :) And that's what I've had to tell myself over and over again for the last two days -as he bounced off of the walls, screaming, hitting and obsessing about strange things - he is warring with his body. My child has not become possessed, my child has not had a sudden behavioral bout of insanity, my child will return....

And then we were out on the stoop. P was pissed he couldn't play at his Uncle's house and was buying time outdoors, hoping the winds would change in his favor. He was obsessing, a common occurrence for him when a food allergy is active. I navigated it as cautiously as I could, supporting, validating, but unable to change the world. Eventually, as an hour passed and the rain still came onto my slippered feet (yah, we weren't planning on hanging on the stoop) and the little man twirled around the banister, I announced my need to pee. He stalled. He stonewalled. He adamantly refused. This is beyond out of character these days. He's a gracious deal maker when its just the two of us. Admittedly more selfish and hard to reach when surrounded by friends or family, he typically finds win-win solutions when its just the Mama and the little man.

At any rate, my continued attempt to navigate the situation in a typical fashion proved ridiculous, as the wee one was a-typical for the day :) Our stand-off ended in me gently carrying a mortified and resistant little man up three flights of stairs as his heart broke, realizing he wasn't actually strong enough to overpower me. I hated it. Yup, the word fits there ;)

And thus, at the entrance to our flat (after relieving myself amidst the fury of little fists) a very angry and hurt child turned his baby blues to me and said "I hate you right now mama." D'oh. Lemme tell you, that one hurts. I instantly remembered him picking the pretzel over me. The adult in me understood that this was a healthy way for him to deal with his stolen autonomy, his disappointment at the way the afternoon played out. I silently thanked the Universe that my child trusts me enough to be able to express himself freely, to not hide his "hatred" or anger out of fear of my response, fear of my own anger or childish emotions. That he can expel it and get past it. But jeez that still smarted. And so my tear, the tell tale one I can't ever stop, rolled down my cheek and the child moved away from the wall he was huddled against, towards my lap. "Mama, what's this? Why is your face like that? Why do you have a tear?"

Ha, hates me my ass :) I told him he felt so sad that I felt some of the sadness. And the bridge was built. I asked him, again, as I had down on the stoop, what was going on, where his anger was coming from, could I help? And then he could tell me what he couldn't before, that he was mad he couldn't go to Seth's, that he loved Seth and wanted to see him more. That we always have to leave Seth. And his tears came, only briefly, before he could suck them back up with a frown, start to smack me again, remember that he didn't want to hurt me, cry for a brief wail and then.... rest in my arms. Poor, poor four year olds. The world is so big and mysterious and they have such little power over it (or their hyped up wee bodies!). So, I'll give him his new word, the power it gives him to say it, even if I hate hearing it ;)